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Tuesday 30 June 2020
New top story from Time: Government Report Says Boeing Fell Short in Disclosing Key Changes to 737 Max Jet
A government report says Boeing did not give regulators documents about changes it made in a key system blamed in two deadly crashes of its 737 Max jet, and that officials responsible for approving the plane did not know how powerfully the system could push the plane’s nose down.
Government personnel involved in flight tests knew about changes Boeing made to the flight-control system, but engineers responsible for certifying the plane did not, according to the report, which is expected to be released Wednesday.
Engineers for the Federal Aviation Administration didn’t perform a detailed examination of the flight-control system, called MCAS, until after the first crash, in October 2018 off the coast of Indonesia.
In that crash and another less than five months later in Ethiopia, MCAS pushed the nose of each plane down and pilots were unable to regain control. The crashes killed 346 people and led regulators around the world to ground every Boeing 737 Max — nearly 400 of them.
This week, Boeing and the FAA began certification flights using FAA test pilots. If the FAA deems the flights satisfactory, it could let airlines resume using the plane later this year, which would be a massive victory for Boeing even as the company contends with dozens of wrongful-death lawsuits filed by families of passengers.
Many of the findings in the report by the Transportation Department’s acting inspector general have previously been published in news accounts. But the report provides more evidence for lawmakers who want to overhaul FAA’s process for approving new aircraft.
The report was requested by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and congressional leaders, including Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., whose committees are investigating the FAA’s approval of the Max.
In a comment attached to the report, FAA said the inspector general’s view “will help FAA to better understand some of the factors that may have contributed to the crashes and ensure these types of accidents never occur again.” The agency said it was working on improvements to the aircraft-certification process.
In a statement, Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi said the company is making sure that improvements to Max “are comprehensive and thoroughly tested.” When the plane returns, he said, “it will be one of the most thoroughly scrutinized aircraft in history, and we have full confidence in its safety.”
The inspector general’s report is a timeline of the plane’s history from design work in 2012 until 2019, when the plane was grounded.
In early development of the Max, Boeing indicated MCAS would not activate often, and so the system didn’t receive a detailed review by FAA. In 2016, as the plane was going through test flights, Boeing changed MCAS to increase its power to turn the nose down under some conditions. But the company did not submit documents to the FAA detailing this change, the inspector general found.
FAA flight-test personnel knew, “but key FAA certification engineers and personnel responsible for approving the level of airline pilot training told us they were unaware of the revision to MCAS,” the inspector general said.
The FAA began reviewing its certification of MCAS more than two months after the Indonesian crash. It was the first time agency engineers had taken a detailed look at the system, according to the report.
As disclosed during a House Transportation Committee hearing last year, an FAA analysis estimated that Max planes might crash 15 more times if MCAS were not fixed. However, the agency let the plane continue to fly while Boeing began fixing the system, a job Boeing expected to complete by July 2019.
The second Max crash occurred in March 2019.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report ahead of its publication. The findings were previously reported by Reuters.
New top story from Time: 5 Austin Police Investigated Over Use of Force at Protests
(AUSTIN, Texas) — Five Austin police officers are on paid administrative duty amid an investigation into the use of what authorities call “less lethal” force during May protests against police brutality and racial injustice, according to the police department.
The investigation follows public outcry after two people participating in protests in Austin sparked by the death of George Floyd were seriously injured by officers’ bean bag rounds — ammunition that law enforcement deems “less lethal” than bullets.
Officers Nicholas Gebhart, Kyu An, John Siegel, Derrick Lehman and Kyle Felton were placed under investigation as of Friday, and their duties have been limited.
A spokeswoman for Austin police said in an email Tuesday that the department could not confirm whether the officers were involved in the cases of 20-year-old Justin Howell or 16-year-old Brad Levi Ayala, who were both hospitalized after being unintentionally shot in the head with bean bag rounds during protests the last weekend of May.
The statement cited ongoing investigations in its reasoning for limiting the release of information.
The Austin Police Association did not immediately respond to The Associated Press for comment Tuesday.
Paid administrative duty limits the type of work officers can do while they are under investigation. Austin police policy says officers can be placed on paid administrative duty pending investigations into any force that resulted in serious bodily injury requiring hospitalization and the use of impact weapons.
The Austin Police Special Investigations Unit and the Internal Affairs Division are working to identify other officers involved in protest-related incidents, according to the statement.
Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died May 25 after pleading for air while a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes. His killing catalyzed global protests against racism and police brutality. Protesters in Austin and across the nation took to the streets, and the force used by police during some clashes, while not fatal, had devastating consequences.
From 1990 to 2014, rubber bullets caused 53 deaths and 300 permanent disabilities among 1,984 serious injuries recorded by medical workers in over a dozen countries, according to Rohini Haar, an emergency room doctor in Oakland, California, and primary author of the 2016 Physicians for Human Rights report.
The Austin Police Department Chief Brian Manley said Austin police would no longer use less lethal munitions in crowd situations during a special Austin City Council meeting on June 4. More than 300 people signed up for public comment during the meeting to speak on police use of force witnessed during the late May protests.
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Acacia Coronado is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
New top story from Time: Boston to Remove Statue of Slave Kneeling Before Lincoln After Complaints
(BOSTON) — Boston’s arts commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to remove a statue that depicts a freed slave kneeling at Abraham Lincoln’s feet.
The commission had fielded escalating complaints about the Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Emancipation Group and the Freedman’s Memorial, as a nation confronting racial injustice rethinks old imagery.
The statue has stood in a park just off Boston Common since 1879. It’s a copy of an identical monument that was erected in Washington, D.C., three years earlier. The copy was installed in Boston because the city was home to the statue’s white creator, Thomas Ball.
Although the monument was created to celebrate the freeing of slaves in America, its design disturbed many who objected to the optics of a Black man kneeling before Lincoln.
“What I heard today is that it hurts to look at this piece, and in the Boston landscape, we should not have works that bring shame to any groups of people,” said Ekua Holmes, vice chairperson of the arts commission.
“After engaging in a public process, it’s clear that residents and visitors to Boston have been uncomfortable with this statue,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement.
More than 12,000 people had signed a petition demanding the statue’s removal. Officials did not immediately set a date to take it down, and said details would be worked out at their next meeting on July 14.
The memorial has been on Boston’s radar at least since 2018, when it launched a comprehensive review of whether public sculptures, monuments and other artworks reflected the city’s diversity and didn’t offend communities of color. The arts commission said it was paying extra attention to works with “problematic histories.”
“As we continue our work to make Boston a more equitable and just city, it’s important that we look at the stories being told by the public art in all of our neighborhoods,” Walsh said.
Freed Black donors paid for the original in Washington; white politician and circus showman Moses Kimball financed the copy in Boston. The inscription on both reads: “A race set free and the country at peace. Lincoln rests from his labors.”
But Blacks weren’t part of the design process, and the memorial’s central visual takeaway — a Black man kneeling before his white savior — has had people cringing for years.
Protesters have vowed to tear down the original statue in Washington, which has been protected by National Guard troops guarding it and other monuments.
New top story from Time: New York City Council Speaker Expects Plan to Cut $1 Billion From NYPD to Pass
(NEW YORK) — New York City lawmakers were expected Tuesday to approve shifting $1 billion from policing to education and social services in the coming year, acknowledging protesters’ demands to cut police spending — but falling short of what activists sought.
City Council members were due to debate and vote on the plan Tuesday night, with time running short ahead of the budget year that begins Wednesday. Mayor Bill de Blasio supports the $88.2 billion spending plan and Council Speaker Corey Johnson said he was confident it would pass the council, but he expected a lot of “no” votes from members who want to cut more from police.
The vote comes at an extraordinary moment when the nation’s biggest city is grappling with a $9 billion revenue loss due to the coronavirus pandemic and simultaneously with pressure to cut back on policing and invest more in community and social programs.
Protesters have been camped outside City Hall, insisting that the city slash $1 billion from the New York Police Department’s budget amid a nationwide campaign to “defund” police — a movement animated by outrage over the deaths of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police.
The proposal did little to assuage the demonstrators. Many said they intended to stay outside City Hall indefinitely.
“We are being gaslit,” said activist Jawanza James Williams. “This movement is about so much more than the $1 billion, and this means they don’t understand what we’re saying.”
Activists say the budget needs to make a substantial, not symbolic, difference in advancing racial justice and curbing the size and power of the nation’s largest police force.
Five years ago, the City Council — then as now, overwhelmingly Democratic — added nearly 1,300 additional officers to the NYPD. Now, Johnson has said he was wrong to support the expansion, and he lamented Tuesday that he had been unable to negotiate a bigger police budget cut.
“I am disappointed,” Johnson said at a news conference. “I did my best.”
Council budget leaders said they needed to balance calls to cut policing with residents’ concerns about safety.
“Many in my community have supported police and want police. They just want families and young people to be treated fairly,” said Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, who represents a Bronx district where over half of residents are Hispanic and about 40% are Black. Gibson said she’d met Tuesday with relatives of a Bronx 17-year-old who was shot and killed Sunday, days after his high school graduation.
“I don’t want anyone to misunderstand and think that we don’t care and that we have not been working our behinds off to get to a place of equity,” while ensuring communities “are not left behind with crime, violence, illegal guns in our communities, no programs, no activities, and no hope for a better tomorrow,” Gibson said.
But some other members said the budget proposal didn’t dig deep enough into police spending. Councilman Brad Lander, who planned to vote no, called it “more budget-dancing than meaningful reductions.”
Cuts would come from canceling a nearly 1,200-person police recruiting class set for next month — though another class in October is scheduled to go forward — as well as halving overtime spending, redeploying officers from administrative functions to patrol and ending police responsibility for school crossing guards and homeless outreach.
The police department also would give up control over public school security, which the NYPD took over from the Department of Education in 1998. The city has about 5,300 civilian school safety agents. De Blasio said details were being worked out, but the Education Department would train the agents.
Money would go instead to education, social services in communities hit hard by the virus, and summer youth programs for over 100,000 people.
Other cuts are being made to the NYPD’s capital budget, including cancelling plans to build a new police precinct in Queens and instead using the money to build a community center.
“We all understand that we have to answer the concerns of this moment, that people want to see our society progress,” de Blasio, a Democrat, said at a news conference. He vowed the changes would not compromise public safety.
Police officials didn’t comment Tuesday. Commissioner Dermot Shea has said he was open to giving up school safety and other cuts, as long as the amount of officers on patrol doesn’t shrink.
The NYPD budget is now around $6 billion, plus several billion dollars more in shared city expenses such as pensions.
The new plan calls for an ambitious, nearly $300 million cut in police overtime. The department paid out $115 million in overtime just during recent protests over Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis.
The city budget totaled nearly $93 billion when passed last June. Before the virus hit, de Blasio proposed a more than $95 billion spending plan for the budget year that starts Wednesday.
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Associated Press writer Jim Mustian contributed to this report.
New top story from Time: The Hamilton Movie Is a Mesmerizing, Exuberant Delight
The moment Lin-Manuel Miranda conceived the idea of telling the story of Alexander Hamilton almost exclusively with a cast of brown and Black actors was its own kind of big bang. People have tried before to jazz up the story of the founding fathers, with often miserable results (Exhibit A, from 1972: the lackluster film musical 1776). And theater companies have mounted productions of Shakespearean plays and other works from the white, English-speaking canon with casts made up wholly of people of color. But by focusing specifically on the early days of our nation’s fraught history, Miranda affirmed something few people had overtly recognized: That the history of the United States—a country founded by white men who first took land from native people, then built further riches from the labor of enslaved people—belongs to us all, regardless of color. It is ours both to own and to own up to, depending on who we are and who our forebears were, whether we benefited greatly from the status quo or were harmed by it. With Hamilton, Miranda added a swooping tag to the great Woody Guthrie line: This land was made for you and me, because it was made by you and me.
The main problem with Hamilton’s expansive vision—the show was first performed at the Public Theater in New York in 2015, before becoming a nearly impossible-to-see Broadway hit—was that so few people could experience it. But a filmed version of Hamilton now changes all that: Miranda, who also plays the title role, and the show’s director, Thomas Kail, had recorded some 2016 performances at the Richard Rodgers Theater, with the intention of eventually turning it into a theatrically released film. Although that plan has been sidelined by COVID, the “movie” version of Hamilton will be available to stream beginning July 3 on Disney+, and it’s a pleasure—both a delight to watch and a great piece of pop scholarship, an entertainment informed by a sense of history and of curiosity.
Miranda was inspired to write the show after reading Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton, and he hews fairly close to fact: The show opens with an exuberant number that tells us, in shorthand, who Alexander Hamilton was—as if to say, There’s no shame in not knowing, but wouldn’t you like to know? The major figures in the life of this brash and extraordinary figure come forward one by one, singing just a snippet of their role in his story, weaving around one another like links in a human chain. They include his sweet but also surprisingly shrewd and resilient wife, Eliza (Phillipa Soo); Philip (Anthony Ramos), the son who met a tragic end; and Angelica (Renée Elise Goldsberry), Eliza’s sister, who loves her brother-in-law in a way that causes her great suffering. We meet Hamilton’s friends, like the suave Marquis de Lafayette (the fabulous Daveed Diggs, who also plays Thomas Jefferson), and the leader who made Hamilton a trusted advisor, George Washington (Christopher Jackson). And finally, there’s the man who introduces himself as “the damn fool that shot him,” Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.), a haunted narrator whose competitiveness and rancor leads him to a moment that essentially ends two lives, even though it results in only one immediate death.
At the center of it all is Miranda’s Hamilton, a man who, as he tells us, wants the world to know his name. Born out of wedlock in the British West Indies, he’s orphaned at age 12; as a young man, he’s so bright that he’s sent to New York to study. From there, he’ll become a soldier, a trusted member of then-General Washington’s staff, a lawyer and eventually the first Secretary of the Treasury. But he’s also one of the architects of the United States as both a nation and an ideal, an immigrant who, in Miranda’s words, “got the job done.”
Miranda, as both writer and actor, approaches Hamilton’s story with stars in his eyes, and his sense of joy and discovery rings through the material. There’s enough drama here for three lives, let alone one. Hamilton, presented by Miranda as a charismatic, impetuous, sometimes maddening figure, is a magnet for everything life has to offer, and he grabs some of it unwisely.
As a performer, Miranda is exuberant almost to the point of overkill; at close range, his broad, open-hearted facial expressions sometimes register as mugging, an issue that might not be as apparent in live performance. Even so, his energy carries the day, and the performers around him feed off it; they’re bolstered, it seems, by the rapture of doing something new—the whole show is like one big cymbal-crash, an announcement of “I am here!” The musical numbers, all penned by Miranda, slide easily from the braggadocio of ‘90s rap to the lilt of Harlem jazz and beyond. Miraculously, nothing sounds excessively show-tuney: This is music mostly meant to be sung, not belted. There are ballads that resonate with somber maturity (“It’s Quiet Uptown”), and teasing, bluesy numbers that beckon like a neon nightclub sign (“The Room Where It Happens”). King George III’s big moment, “You’ll Be Back”—the monarch who lost his grip on the colonies is played by a comically exaggerated Jonathan Groff—has the swervey salaciousness of an Anthony Newley cabaret tune from the early ‘70s.
There are more than 20 songs in all—almost too many! But the variety is so vast that they don’t grow tiresome. The staging is inventive and graceful: At one point a revolving segment of the stage allows the players in Hamilton’s life to circle in mesmerizing slow motion, like history’s ghosts coming round to remind us that they, too, were once flesh and blood. If you’ve already seen the show—I hadn’t—these delights won’t be new to you. But even though nothing matches the thrill of live performance, the filmed Hamilton does offer its advantages: Kail, the director of this film as well as the play, chooses his close-ups carefully, and there’s no busy, distracting camera work. The effect is that of watching the show not from the best seat in the house, but from the best ten seats. Best of all is the exultation of watching so many marvelous performers, ablaze with the elation of making something truly new. The history of this cracked mess of a country, bold and dramatic but also streaked with blood, is for all of us to remember, but also to build upon. As Hamilton reminds us, we’re the sum of our founding fathers’ good ideas as well as their misdeeds. The framers put the frame around the future—but they left the job of filling it to us.
New top story from Time: First COVID-19 Case Confirmed in Asylum Seeker Camp at U.S.-Mexico Border
(CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico) — An international disaster relief organization reported Tuesday the first confirmed case of COVID-19 among migrants living in a tent encampment of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Global Response Management said that one person in the Matamoros, Tamaulipas camp across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas had tested positive.
“Aggressive isolation and tracing measures have been enacted,” the U.S.-based relief organization said via Twitter.
There are some 2,000 asylum seekers living in tents along the border. The migrants from Central America and other parts of the world have been stranded by the United States’ suspension of asylum hearings due to the pandemic through at least mid-July.
Last week, Andrea Leiner, a spokeswoman for GRM, said they had implemented measures to try to reduce the risk of the virus’ spread, but conceded it was a challenge with confirmed infections cropping up among U.S. and Mexican immigration officials and in residents on both sides of the border.
They had placed tents a meter (3 feet) apart, leaving them open for ventilation and having everyone sleep head to toe to curtail the chances of transmission while people sleep.
Two Tamaulipas state immigration officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said the infected person was a Mexican citizen who was deported earlier in June from the United States to Reynosa and who arrived at the camp over the weekend.
Four other people the young woman had contact with tested negative, the officials said.
Asylum seekers began pooling in border cities like Matamoros under the U.S. policy commonly known as “Remain in Mexico,” in which asylum seekers can make their initial request for U.S. asylum, but have to wait in Mexico for the lengthy process to play out.
More than 60,000 asylum-seekers have been returned to Mexico to wait for hearings in U.S. court since January 2019, when the U.S. introduced its “Migrant Protection Protocols” policy.
There had been concern since the arrival of the pandemic that the crowded tents and lack of proper sanitation could lead to infections in the Matamoros camp.
GRM started working in the camp last September. The organization provides medical treatment with a team of medical volunteers.
Dr. Michele Heisler, medical director at Physicians for Human Rights and professor of internal medicine and public health at University of Michigan, in a statement characterized GRM’s work in the camp as “Herculean.” She criticized the U.S. policy for creating the situation and said asylum seekers should be paroled to stay with relatives in the U.S. while their cases are processed.
“Local and national health authorities in Mexico must act immediately to improve access to COVID-19 testing and care in Matamoros,” Heisler said. “The families living in the Matamoros tent city are among the most vulnerable in the hemisphere to the spread of COVID-19.”
Mexico’s own national case load continues to rise steadily, with 5,432 confirmed cases reported Tuesday, to bring the nationwide total to more than 226,000. Confirmed COVID-19 deaths rose by 648 Tuesday, to bring the total to 27,769 deaths.
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AP writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.
New top story from Time: Politicians Call For U.N. Probe Into China Forcing Birth Control on Uighurs
Politicians around the world have called for a United Nations probe into a Chinese government birth control campaign targeting largely Muslim minorities in the far western region of Xinjiang, even as Beijing said it treats all ethnicities equally under the law.
They were referring to an Associated Press investigation published this week that found the Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities, while encouraging some of the country’s Han majority to have more children. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of European, Australian, North American, and Japanese politicians from across the political spectrum, demanded an independent U.N. investigation.
“The world cannot remain silent in the face of unfolding atrocities,” the group said in a statement.
The AP found that the Chinese government regularly subjects minority women in Xinjiang to pregnancy checks and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands. New research obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication by China scholar Adrian Zenz also showed that the hundreds of millions of dollars the government pours into birth control has transformed Xinjiang from one of China’s fastest-growing regions to among its slowest in just a few years.
The AP found that the population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, documents and interviews show, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom called for a U.N. and State Department investigation, saying the Chinese government’s birth control campaign “might meet the legal criteria for genocide.” According to a U.N. convention, “imposing measures intended to prevent births” with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” is considered evidence of genocide. The last colonial governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, told Bloomberg Television that the birth control campaign was “arguably something that comes within the terms of the UN views on sorts of genocide.”
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee called the forced birth control “beyond deplorable,” and said that “a nation that treats its own people this way should never be considered a great power.” U.S. senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris wrote a letter urging the Trump administration to respond to an “alarming” AP investigation, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Ro Khanna also called for action.
U.S. President Donald Trump told China President Xi Jinping he was right to build detention camps to house hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities, according to a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton. However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the reports of forced birth control for minorities were “shocking” and “disturbing” in a statement Monday.
“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices,” he said.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian fired back on Tuesday by calling Pompeo “a brazen liar,” saying the Uighur population had more than doubled since 1978 in response to criticism of Xinjiang’s birth control policies.
“If Mr. Pompeo is telling the truth, how can he explain the big increase in the Uighur population?” Zhao asked.
For decades, Xinjiang’s population grew quickly, as minorities enjoyed laxer birth control restrictions than Han Chinese. But in just three years, new measures have caused the birth rate in Xinjiang’s Uighur-majority areas to plunge, and it is now well under the national average.
Zhao also said the American government had been responsible for “genocide, racial segregation and assimilation policies” on Native Americans. on them.” University of Colorado researcher Darren Byler said the Chinese state-orchestrated assault on Xinjiang’s minorities does echo past birth control programs.
“It recalls the American eugenics movement which targeted Native and African Americans up until the 1970s,” he said. “China’s public health authorities are conducting a mass experiment in targeted genetic engineering on Turkic Muslim populations.”
In response to the AP story, which he called “fake news,” Zhao said the government treats all ethnicities equally and protects their legal rights. Chinese officials have said in the past that the new measures are merely meant to be fair, with the law now allowing minorities and China’s Han majority the same number of children.
However, the AP’s reporting found that while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show. Some rural minorities are punished even for having the three children allowed by the law.
British members of Parliament debated Xinjiang in the House of Commons on Monday, with both Labor and Conservative politicians urging the U.K. Foreign Ministry to adopt a stronger stance against the Chinese government. Nigel Adams, the British Minister of State for Asia, said the reports added to the U.K.’s “concern about the human rights situation in Xinjiang” and that it will be “considering this report very carefully.” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne also told Australian broadcaster SBS that the reports “further compounded” their concerns.
Bill Browder, CEO of investment fund Hermitage Capital Management and brainchild of the Magnitsky Act, asked the U.S. government to level sanctions against Chinese officials, calling the birth control campaign part of a broader assault he called “vile persecution.”
New top story from Time: Senate Temporarily Extends Small Business Coronavirus Relief Program
(WASHINGTON) — Democrats drove a temporary extension of a popular subsidy program for small businesses through the GOP-controlled Senate late Tuesday, an unexpected development that came as spikes in coronavirus cases in many states are causing renewed shutdowns of bars and other businesses.
The move by Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin came hours before a deadline for applying for the program, which was created in March and modified twice since. Cardin, the top Democrat on the Small Business Committee, asked for unanimous approval of the extension of the Paycheck Protection Program through Aug. 8.
Minority lawmakers are hardly ever successful in such attempts, but the pressure swayed Republicans controlling the Senate, who have delayed consideration of a fifth coronavirus relief bill and are preparing to go home for a two-week recess.
About $130 billion remains of $660 billion approved so far for the subsidy program, which provides direct subsidies to businesses harmed by the coronavirus pandemic, which slammed the economy as consumers and workers were forced to stay at home through much of spring.
The subsidies come in the form of federal loans that can be forgiven if businesses follow rules such as utilizing 60% of the loan for payroll costs. The loans have been a lifeline to more than 4 million businesses.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York took a victory lap after the unexpectedly successful maneuver, saying renewed economic troubles are reviving interest in the program.
“There are large numbers of businesses who are going to need to apply now. Had this program run out today, they would have been out of luck,” Schumer said. “Now with this renewal, short time, August 8, they at least get the chance to reapply.”
New top story from Time: How the Entertainment Industry Is Reckoning With Racism, From Changing Band Names to Canceling TV Shows
When protesters began flooding the streets of Minneapolis last month after the police killing of George Floyd, they were decrying police brutality and systemic racism. There’s little doubt that something as far-removed from that grave situation as The Golden Girls was anywhere near top of mind.
But that 1980s sitcom, unrelated as it may seem, is one of the cultural institutions that has been affected by the reverberations of protests as they spread across the country and the globe. Statues are coming down; leaders are resigning after being accused of perpetrating racist structures; cultural works from the present and past alike are being scrutinized through new lenses. And when, on June 27, Hulu pulled an episode of The Golden Girls in which Blanche and Rose wear mud masks resembling blackface, it was just one of many concrete actions taken in recent weeks as platforms, gatekeepers and creators reconsider both past output and the future of their organizations.
Here are the many ways in which the cultural world is changing in response to the protests.
TV shows are being canceled or reconsidered
As calls to defund the police have intensified, networks have canceled two reality shows that some say glorify police violence: Cops, which was about to air its 33rd season on the Paramount Network, and Live PD, which was A&E’s top-rated series.
Another cop show, the comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is changing its new season to reflect the protests. “We have to start over. Right now we don’t know which direction it’s going to go in,” cast member Terry Crews told Deadline.
Jenna Marbles, one of YouTube’s early stars, announced she would discontinue her main YouTube channel, which included scenes in which she wore blackface and used slurs to mock an Asian man. “I’m sorry if any of that holds any nostalgia for you, but I’m literally not trying to put out negative things into the world,” she said.
TV episodes are being removed from streaming services
In addition to The Golden Girls, dozens of other shows or episodes that have featured blackface are being scrubbed from streaming services. Tina Fey requested that four episodes of 30 Rock containing blackface be removed from streaming, digital rental and TV syndication; Greg Daniels, the creator of The Office, edited out a scene of the episode “Dwight Christmas” that features a character briefly in blackface.
Episodes of Community, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Scrubs were pulled for the same reason. And Netflix removed both Little Britain and several of comedian Chris Lilley’s shows, including Summer Heights High and Jonah From Tonga, for their extensive use of blackface.
While many creators apologized for their usage of blackface, some defended their work, saying they deployed it in a critical and self-conscious manner. After an episode of the sketch show W/ Bob & David was pulled from Netflix, for example, co-creator David Cross wrote on Twitter that “the point of this was to underscore the absurdity” of a “ridiculous, foolish character.”
Disclaimers have been added to outdated works
In mid-June, HBO Max pulled Gone With the Wind from their catalog before reinstating it with a pre-movie note that reads, “the film’s treatment of this world through a lens of nostalgia denies the horrors of slavery, as well as its legacy of racial inequality.” They also tacked on a spoken prologue, which can be viewed on YouTube, from film professor and Turner Classic Movies host Jacqueline Stewart.
A 1975 episode of the John Cleese sitcom Fawlty Towers underwent a similar process. Initially, The BBC removed the episode from their streaming service, as it contained a number of racial epithets. But Cleese and others lobbied to keep it up, saying it was a critique and not a glorification.
The network then announced it would put the episode back up with “extra guidance and warnings … to highlight potentially offensive content.”
Shane Dawson, who has been called the “king of YouTube,” came under fire for videos in which he wore blackface, mocked those with disabilities, sexualized minors and made anti-Semitic comments. While YouTube did not remove his channel, they did take away his advertising revenue for an indefinite period of time.
White actors are stepping down from voicing Black characters
It has not been uncommon for Black characters on animated shows to be voiced by white actors—but that’s beginning to change. Jenny Slate announced that she would no longer voice the biracial character Missy on Netflix’s Big Mouth, writing, “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people.” Kristen Bell followed suit, ceding the role of Molly on the new Apple TV+ show Central Park, and so did Mike Henry, who has voiced Cleveland on Family Guy and The Cleveland Show for two decades. (Following his announcement, Wendell Pierce threw his hat in the ring to play the character.)
The Simpsons announced that longtime Springfield residents of color like Dr. Hibbert and Carl Carlson would no longer be voiced by white actors. (In February, Hank Azaria stepped down from the role of Apu.)
Bands are changing their names
Two ultra-famous bands with names tied to the Confederacy have rebranded. Lady Antebellum shortened their name to Lady A, writing in a statement that “blindspots we didn’t even know existed have been revealed.” (Unfortunately, they missed the fact that a Black singer has gone by Lady A for two decades.) The Dixie Chicks dropped the “Dixie” from their name to become The Chicks in advance of a new album, Gaslighter.
Meanwhile, Splash Mountain, which is not a band but a water ride at Disney World, is shaking its connection to the antebellum south: it will replace its Song of the South-based plotline with one derived from The Princess and the Frog.
Leaders of arts organizations are stepping down
The CEO and co-owner Second City stepped down from his post after being called out by many former Black members. In his resignation note, he wrote that he “failed to create an anti-racist environment wherein artists of color might thrive.”
The executive director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago resigned; so did the president of the Poetry Foundation, after a scathing open letter was signed by more than 1,800 poets. And the artistic director and co-founder of the Signature Theater in Arlington, Va., stepped down after accusations of sexual misconduct.
Other performers and creatives have been fired
Writer-producer Craig Gore was fired from an SVU spinoff after posting a message online threatening protesters. The actor Hartley Sawyer was fired from The Flash after old racist and misogynistic tweets resurfaced.
On Vanderpump Rules, four cast members were fired: two for sending racist tweets, and two for reporting a Black co-star to the police.
Gatekeeper organizations are making internal changes
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it would be amending its rules to help make Oscar eligibility more inclusive. Netflix said it would give 2 percent of its cash going forward to financial institutions and organizations that directly support Black communities.
The Flea, in downtown Manhattan, was called out for “racism, sexism, gaslighting, disrespect and abuse,” and responded by announcing that it will pay all of its artists. And the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis announced it would cut ties with the police.
New top story from Time: Mississippi Officially Removes Confederate Emblem From State Flag
JACKSON, Miss. — With a stroke of the governor’s pen, Mississippi is retiring the last state flag in the U.S. with the Confederate battle emblem — a symbol that’s widely condemned as racist.
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday signed the historic bill that takes the 126-year-old state flag out of law, immediately removing official status for the banner that has been a source of division for generations.
“This is not a political moment to me but a solemn occasion to lead our Mississippi family to come together, to be reconciled, and to move on,” Reeves said in a statement. “We are a resilient people defined by our hospitality. We are a people of great faith. Now, more than ever, we must lean on that faith, put our divisions behind us, and unite for a greater good.”
Mississippi has faced increasing pressure to change its flag since protests against racial injustice have focused attention on Confederate symbols.
A broad coalition of legislators on Sunday passed the landmark legislation to change the flag, capping a weekend of emotional debate and decades of effort by Black lawmakers and others who see the rebel emblem as a symbol of hatred.
The Confederate battle emblem has a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars. White supremacist legislators put it on the upper-left corner of the Mississippi flag in 1894, as white people were squelching political power that African Americans had gained after the Civil War.
Critics have said for generations that it’s wrong for a state where 38% of the people are Black to have a flag marked by the Confederacy, particularly since the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups have used the symbol to promote racist agendas.
Mississippi voters chose to keep the flag in a 2001 statewide election, with supporters saying they saw it as a symbol of Southern heritage. But since then, a growing number of cities and all the state’s public universities have abandoned it.
Several Black legislators, and a few white ones, kept pushing for years to change it. After a white gunman who had posed with the Confederate flag killed Black worshipers at a South Carolina church in 2015, Mississippi’s Republican speaker of the House, Philip Gunn, said his religious faith compelled him to say that Mississippi must purge the symbol from its flag.
The issue was still broadly considered too volatile for legislators to touch, until the police custody death of an African American man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, set off weeks of sustained protests against racial injustice, followed by calls to take down Confederate symbols.
A groundswell of young activists, college athletes and leaders from business, religion, education and sports called on Mississippi to make this change, finally providing the momentum for legislators to vote.
Before the governor signed the bill Tuesday, state employees raised and lowered several of the flags on a pole outside the Capitol. The secretary of state’s office sells flags for $20 each. A spokeswoman for that office, Kendra James, said Tuesday there has been a recent increase in requests from people wanting to buy one.
During news conferences in recent weeks, Reeves had repeatedly refused to say whether he thought the Confederate-themed flag properly represents present-day Mississippi, sticking to a position he ran on last year, when he promised people that if the flag design was going to be reconsidered, it would be done in another statewide election.
Now, a commission will design a new flag, one that cannot include the Confederate symbol and must have the words “In God We Trust.” Voters will be asked to approve the new design in the Nov. 3 election. If they reject it, the commission will draft a different design using the same guidelines, to be sent to voters later.
Said Reeves in signing over the flag’s demise, “We are all Mississippians and we must all come together. What better way to do that than include “In God We Trust” on our new state banner.”
He added: “The people of Mississippi, black and white, and young and old, can be proud of a banner that puts our faith front and center. We can unite under it. We can move forward —together.”
New top story from Time: ‘It Only Ends When They’re Dead.’ David France on His Chilling HBO Documentary Welcome to Chechnya
Over the last several years, anti-LGBTQ “purges” have taken place in Chechnya, a conservative Russian republic. Chechen officials, according to many reports and testimonies, have rounded up people they believe to be gay, tortured them and then released them to family members who were encouraged to commit “honor killings.”
Fearing for their lives, some young queer people have fled the predominantly Muslim region with the hopes of finding safety outside Russia. Welcome to Chechnya, a documentary by David France premiering June 30 on HBO, follows these refugees and the activists going to extraordinary lengths to help them escape.
Chechen officials have denied that purges took place, saying in one case that gay people do not exist in that part of Russia and if they did, their relatives would be so ashamed that they “would have sent them to where they could never return.” European countries have criticized Russian authorities for allowing a “climate of impunity” in the republic.
Welcome to Chechnya is France’s third documentary. His first, 2012’s How to Survive a Plague, based on his own book of the same name, reflected on the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. and earned numerous awards including an Oscar nomination. His second, 2017’s The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, explores the life of the prominent activist. Ahead of the release of his new film, TIME spoke with France about the extreme security measures he put in place for Welcome to Chechnya, what he thinks of the government’s denials and why, despite the risk, Chechens were willing to tell their stories.
TIME: When did you realize you wanted to make this film?
David France: I decided to do the film the minute I realized that this activism was taking place, desperately, in a world that wasn’t helping. No one was covering it. So I just left for Russia.
After working on the film for 18 months, how would you describe the dangers of being gay in Chechnya?
It’s not possible to live if it’s known that you’re gay. The campaign in Chechnya is a cleansing of the blood, as it has been described. It is a mission to round up and exterminate LGBTQ Chechens, and that doesn’t end when people run away. It only ends when they’re dead.
How did you proceed once you got to Russia, given that your subjects would be in danger if they or the film were discovered?
I had an encrypted phone call with the staff from the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives [an organization helping individuals get resettled in other countries] and presented it to them. They felt it was important to show the world what was happening but said that not everyone would want to be in the film, so we made certain ground rules. I hired a local cameraperson and we moved into [one of the safe houses the center was operating].
What were among those ground rules?
We were careful not to take taxi cabs, for example, directly to the place. We were careful to alter our routes and to not appear in any way to be a film crew. We used a very small consumer camera, beat it up and made it look like a tourist thing. When we were filming in public, we taped up the plastic body so that no lights would be shown and operated it with a cell phone. But there were places where we couldn’t even use that.
Many people in the film are “digitally disguised,” with the faces of other people imposed on their own to hide their identities. Was that something you promised at the outset?
That was one of the security issues that I had with the people who were escaping, to get them to trust me. I signed little deals with everybody that said I wanted to shoot their faces, which they hadn’t let anybody else do, and I would protect my footage with my life. I would somehow find a way to disguise them and I would bring that back to them for their approval.
And had you used this technology before? What is it?
We call it face doubling. This technology has not been used before. We had additional burdens: that we could not move any of our footage over the Internet and we couldn’t work with the footage in an open studio setting. So we had to set up a kind of windowless room in order to keep with our security protocols and hire our own team to do it. We developed the IP with [software architect] Ryan Laney. For documentary filmmakers, this is a brand new tool.
Even with the digital disguises, why did people agree to do this? What did they tell you about why it was worth it to them to risk being on film?
Because they want this to end. And so they would participate if it had a chance of getting us closer to safety in Chechnya. They want to go home. They want to go back to their moms. They’re so young, most of them, to be flung out into the world like this. They want to at least be able to call home, and they can’t even do that. This way they were allowed to tell their stories and affirm their lives in a way that didn’t put them in deeper peril.
Do you see the film as a rebuttal to Chechen and Russian officials who say no persecution has taken place or no investigation is necessary?
Yes, it’s absolutely a rebuttal.
What do you feel is the most compelling new evidence you’re offering, knowing we still don’t see the torture itself?
We are telling stories. We are letting people narrate their journeys. And through the activists who are rescuing them, we’re seeing what the danger is to anybody who is queer in Russia and trying to expose this issue in their own country.
Do you believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for putting a stop to this? In your highest hopes, what changes after this film?
Putin is setting the tone here. Putin is rolling back LGBT rights in Russia. Putin is fomenting hatred for queer people in Russia. Putin has given permission for all his regional leaders to carry that out in their own way, and that’s why this is happening now. Putin could call up [Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov and say, “Stop,” and Kadyrov would stop. And if we can get that, that’s a beginning.
What else needs to happen?
Kadyrov needs to go, and so do his henchmen. They run a regime of thugs, not just thuggery against the LGBTQ community. They were [threatening] people with pipes for not observing lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic there. It’s a brutal, brutal regime.
Besides investigations and pressure campaigns already going on, what should the international community be doing?
I think it’s really going to have to come from higher levels. European leaders, anybody doing political business or economic business with Russia should demand equal treatment. And they’re not. Washington could stop this.
Given Trump’s record on LGBT rights and his relationship with Russia, do you have hopes of Washington actually stepping in?
No, not while he’s in office.
New top story from Time: India’s Ban of 59 Chinese Apps Is the Latest Test for Beijing’s Faltering ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy
Sino-Indian relations have taken another hit following New Delhi’s decision to ban 59 Chinese apps that it claims pose a “threat to sovereignty and integrity.” The move marks the latest salvo between the nuclear-armed neighbors after a Himalayan border skirmish on June 15 that saw at least 20 killed when troops from both sides clashed with clubs and rocks.
On Monday, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released a statement claiming that popular Chinese apps—including ByteDance’s TikTok, Tencent’s WeChat, Alibaba’s UC Web and Baidu’s map and translation services—were harvesting data and sending it to foreign servers.
“The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defense of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” the ministry said.
Kiranjeet Kaur, a senior manager at market intelligence company International Data Corporation, said that the app ban was clearly spurred by the border clash, which took place in the remote Galwan Valley. “There had to be some ramifications or repercussions after what went on at the border so it’s not that surprising,” she said.
With 120 million local users, TikTok has its largest foreign market in India. The app was briefly blocked last year after a court ruled that some content exposed children to pornography, cyber-bullying and sexualization, but that ban was rescinded following a legal appeal. Many users have now taken to other forms of social media to lament the latest prohibition.
It’s unclear whether the ban augurs a broader Indian decoupling from Chinese tech like that being pursued by the Trump administration, which has sanctioned telecoms giant Huawei and is urging New Delhi to play a bigger strategic role in the Indo-Pacific region. But it is certainly a challenge for China’s faltering “wolf warrior” diplomacy—a bellicose form of statecraft named after a pair of Chinese military blockbusters. Beijing’s hawkish new postures, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, have contributed to global anti-China sentiment reaching its highest point since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to China’s Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
“I’m a little bit worried whether top leaders are getting real advice from professionals in the know,” says Prof. Yuan Jingdong, an Asian security expert at the University of Sydney. “Very honest, blunt advice is getting moderated, diluted or distorted so leaders only hear what they prefer to hear.”
Chilling of ties
Quelling this latest spat will take tact. Both neighbors are led by nationalists who have to satisfy the increasingly strident demands of the publics they have stoked. In India, following the Galwan Valley clashes, Chinese flags and pictures of President Xi Jinping were burned in the streets amid calls to boycott Chinese goods and businesses. (Some Chinese retailers in India—such as smartphone market leader Xiaomi—have been protectively pasting “Made in India” signs on their premises.) In turn, many Chinese have taken to social media to mock India for having “no exports to boycott.”
Tarun Pathak, of industry analysts Counterpoint Research, tells TIME that India may be willing to negotiate a truce if Chinese tech firms prove that all the data is locally stored and there are no privacy or security issue with their apps. “It remains to be seen whether this ban is permanent,” he says. “But if the government [withdraws the ban] in 10 or 20 days, the backlash will be fierce.”
In truth, both nations will suffer from a chilling of ties. Bilateral trade stands at $90 billion (though India has a $60 billion deficit.) India’s huge internet market is world’s second biggest and dominated by Chinese firms. Four of India’s top five smartphone makers are Chinese owned, comprising a whopping 81% of total market share. (Due to high import duties, 95% of smartphones sold in the Indian market are manufactured or assembled locally.)
While banning apps is easier that targeting hardware, Indian customs have already begun scrutinizing tech imports from China “more stringently, slowing components entering the country, which ultimately slows down the manufacturing process,” says Kaur.
A tech war between the world’s two most populous nations stands to hamper Chinese growth and threaten tens of thousands of Indian jobs against the backdrop of a coronavirus-related slowdown. India’s 490 million smartphone users constitute an enormous and still under-penetrated market, offering Chinese firms an invaluable opportunity for growth.
The question is whether China can temper its nationalist posture to negotiate a compromise. Recent signs are not good. On top of perennially frosty relations with Japan, South Korea, and rivals in the South China Sea, Beijing is also bickering with Australia over claims of espionage and political interference, Canada over the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wenzhou, and the U.K. over political freedoms in the former British colony of Hong Kong. All of this comes as relations with Washington reach a nadir.
“It’s clearly not good management of diplomacy,” says Prof. Yuan. “When everybody around the world is complaining about Donald Trump, China’s [status] should be on the rise.”
New top story from Time: U.S. Likely to Be Excluded From E.U.’s Travel List
(BRUSSELS) — The European Union is set to make public Tuesday a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter 31 European countries, but most Americans are likely to be refused entry for at least another two weeks due to soaring coronavirus infections in the U.S.
EU envoys to Brussels have launched a written procedure which would see the list endorsed Tuesday morning as long as no objections are raised by member countries. The list is expected to contain up to 15 countries that have virus infection rates comparable to those in the EU.
Infection rates in Brazil, Russia and India are high too, and they are also unlikely to make the cut.
The countries would also have to lift any bans they might have on European travelers. The list of permitted nations is to be updated every 14 days, with new countries being added or even dropping off depending on if they are keeping the disease under control.
The daily number of new confirmed cases in the United States has surged over the past week. The U.S. has the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with nearly 2.6 million people confirmed infected and over 126,000 dead, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University that experts say understates the pandemic’s true toll due to limited testing and other reasons.
In March, President Donald Trump suspended all people from Europe’s ID check-free travel zone from entering the U.S., making it unlikely now that U.S. citizens would qualify to enter the EU.
The EU imposed restrictions on non-essential travel to its 27 nations, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, which are part of the Schengen open-borders area, in March to halt the spread of the virus. Non-EU citizens who are already living in Europe are not included in the ban.
More than 15 million Americans are estimated to travel to Europe annually, and any delay would be a further blow to virus-ravaged economies and tourism sectors on both sides of the Atlantic. Around 10 million Europeans are thought to cross the Atlantic for vacations and business each year.
Tuesday’s decree will not apply to travel to Britain, which left the EU in January. Britain now requires all incoming travelers — bar a few exceptions like truck drivers — to go into a self-imposed 14-day quarantine, although the measure is under review and is likely to ease in the coming weeks. The requirement also applies to U.K. citizens.
New top story from Time: Singapore Prime Minister’s Brother Decides Not to Run Against Him
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s estranged brother won’t stand in the July 10 election, removing a potential obstacle for the ruling party as it seeks to retain its 55-year grip on power.
“I have chosen not to stand for political office because I believe Singapore does not need another Lee,” Lee Hsien Yang said in a Facebook post after the nomination deadline passed. “I do not seek power, prestige or financial rewards of political office. I hope to be a catalyst for change.”
The younger Lee’s announcement as the nine-day election campaign kicked off Tuesday deflated the hype built up after he joined the opposition Progress Singapore Party. The move fanned expectations he could stand as a candidate against the incumbent People’s Action Party, which has won every contest since independence in 1965.
“This makes the campaign less about the family and personal issues and more about the country’s future,” said Bridget Welsh, honorary research associate at the Asia Research Institute, University of Nottingham Malaysia. “He has more capital outside than as a candidate. It is a very steep hill to climb to victory in Singapore and his chances of winning were low.”
While Singapore doesn’t allow opinion polls, most analysts expect the PAP to easily win again in a race that will see all 93 seats contested by at least two parties for just the second time. Still, any narrowing of its victory margin could reflect an erosion of confidence in its new generation of leaders, particularly regarding how they are handling the pandemic.
Singapore’s current opposition leader Pritam Singh wasn’t optimistic. The head of the Workers’ Party warned the opposition could suffer a “wipeout” in the vote.
“It took us 16 years before one seat fell to the opposition,” Singh said on Tuesday. “So it’s an uphill battle, it is going to be a difficult fight.”
Despite declining to run himself, Lee, 62, will campaign against the ruling party co-founded and built up by his father Lee Kuan Yew, the nation’s founding prime minister, which his older brother now leads. The siblings have been sparring over the estate of their father since his death in 2015, and the rivalry has spilled over into other conflicts embroiling the younger Lee’s wife and son.
‘Fighting for every vote’
Prime Minister Lee said Tuesday that his brother is entitled to speak like anybody else, and the public will “assess which ones are worth listening to, which ones make sense.”
“We’re fighting for every vote,” Lee said in a doorstop with reporters after his candidacy was accepted. “It’s a general election for the most important issues concerning the country at a moment of crisis.”
Campaigning ahead of the July 10 vote will likely focus on Singapore’s response to Covid-19 and its economic fallout. The PAP’s election manifesto hails its ability to steer the country through the coronavirus crisis, while numerous opposition parties will surface issues such as the expected increase in the goods-and-services tax and retrenchment insurance.
Family Drama
Lee Hsien Loong has signaled his intent to make way for his successor ahead of turning 70 in 2022, and that’s widely expected to be current Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat. While the prime minister has largely avoided government scandals since he took office in 2004, the family drama has been brewing in recent years.
The siblings have clashed over Lee Kuan Yew’s will, and in particular, his famous Oxley Road house. Lee Hsien Yang’s wife is in a legal tussle over accusations that she mishandled the will, and his son — an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University — faces a court charge for disparaging remarks about the judicial system that were posted on a private Facebook post.
This will be the first election for the Progress Singapore Party, which was founded last year by former ruling party members who became disgruntled with the government.
The party, led by Tan Cheng Bock, a former PAP lawmaker and presidential candidate, must be “careful that its campaign does not get derailed by unnecessary attention on the younger Lee, whose involvement in the campaign could result in his being larger than life” and eclipsing its key campaign messages, said Eugene Tan, a political analyst and law professor at Singapore Management University.
Here’s what else to look out for as candidates square off:
- Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat will contest in a new area in the east against a group led by the main opposition Workers’ Party.
- The election will feature 31 electoral divisions being contested, comprising 14 single-member constituencies and 17 group representation constituencies, with a total of 93 members of Parliament returned.
- The constitution ensures there will be at least 12 opposition MPs in Parliament after this election, compared to nine in the last legislature. If there are fewer than 12 opposition members elected, non-constituency MPs will be chosen from the opposition candidates who received the most votes.
–With assistance from Ranjeetha Pakiam, Joyce Koh and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen.
